


A Storm

by fineinthemorning



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Tragedy, M/M, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 10:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17180825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineinthemorning/pseuds/fineinthemorning
Summary: It rained today, and from high up, the sky, despite being closer, looked less inviting than the ground below.





	A Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kyuubikun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyuubikun/gifts).



> It rained today.

“I knew it was you.” Near out of breath, he stopped only a few meters from the edge of the roof. Approaching the man leaning against the ledge, he didn’t need his third eye to tell him that this was the one person he thought he’d lost.

“The wind is so strong here. A single gust may be just enough to blow me away,” holding hair out of his face as it whipped wildly about his head, Akechi Goro laughed, smiling as he turned just enough to look at him.

Trying still to catch his breath, Akira dared to walk to the ledge, still maintaining the few meters of distance because he knew the man left alone at the edge of an eternal consequence was only as alive as he was dead. He looked out at the metal city beneath the gray sky, and then looked down to see people, like ants, going about their Friday like the world wasn’t on the verge of ending. Falling from an eight story building had never been a fear until now. Even if someone were there to catch you, it wouldn’t matter. 

“If I fall, will you jump after me?” the other asked, looking out at the ocean of glass and concrete. He’d been here a million times before, talking to the few he loved, but this was the first time someone had been there to listen. Would he be the one to tie a knot at the end of his rope? True to form, the other didn’t answer, so he added, “Because you’re a hero? Or because it’s me?” The answer did matter; the answer meant everything, so he leaned forward, pushing his weight just over the edge to watch the other move, reach out, close the distance in a single lunge-- only so that his own feet could fall back safely on the rooftop.

He smiled, wicked but genuine, because even his savior didn’t know the answers.

The hero, now only a meter away, didn’t smile back, but he didn’t frown, either. Instead, he hid behind his glasses like he always did, his mask predictably infallible. 

“You know it was all a lie,” he said.

Akira breathed in deep and exhaled slowly, releasing the nervous energy that a twice martyred man had cursed him with. His adversary saw him as a rival, an equal but opposite obstacle, and what a compliment it was. But, he could not agree. Him? Equal to orphan boy turned Tokyo-darling? Nothing equaled Akechi Goro, least of all him, but, that didn’t mean he didn’t wish he did. It would mean his opinions, his belief, his love, would  weigh heavily enough in Goro’s heart to weigh his feet to the rooftop floor. “Not all of it,” he found it in himself to say as the memories of moments never forgotten cracked fissures so deep in his mind that he did little else beyond fall inside them.

Having found no truth in empty lenses of clouds heavy and near to bursting, Goro looked back to the bugs below, scurrying about in search of shelter as the first few drops, promising the deluge to come, began to fall from above. “Maybe not all of it,” he admitted dryly. “Most of it.”

“What matters wasn’t a lie,” Akira insisted, removing his glasses but never budging from the ledge, even as the rain poured unceasingly, soaking his clothes through to the skin.

The conversation continued as though nothing had changed, the weather around them merely reflecting the storm raging within each of them any time they were faced with a moment alone together. 

Goro leaned into the ledge once more, his elbows planted casually as he turned his head to look at him. “How did you know? From all the way down there?”

To hear, or just to be, he stepped closer, “A sixth sense.”

“A third eye?” he asked knowingly. 

Akira asked questions with his eyes, and, without any retaliation on his part, Goro took the glasses from his hands and tossed them out into the wind and rain only to disappear on the way down.

Would their bodies do the same?

“I did not receive such gifts.” Goro turned to face him, and as he did, the rain began to let up to become a song rather than a scream, “You see, it’s always been hard for me. But, you,” he smiled again, automatic and impossible to stop, “wouldn’t know what that’s like.” He reached up to touch his face, move his wet bangs from his eyes, and trace his cheek down to his neck, “It’s always been easy for you. Everything has always come easy to you.” He let go.

Akira reached back in words alone, “That’s not true.”

Smiling down at the bugs peeking out from the buildings with tentative sprints between them, Goro ignored the plea. He’d died too many times to believe anything beyond the reality of his own failures, which meant, very much in this case, the reality of another’s triumphs.

“I’m always scared,” Akira meant to say it above a song, but the rain had since become a whisper, drizzle falling through the air so light it rarely touched ground. 

How laughable. Joker was no reluctant hero, though he was chosen to be champion without his consent. Goro liked seeing his eyes without glasses to shield them; fear was an emotion he knew too well. “Even of me?”

“Most of all, you.” Akira swore, practically cementing his words in a seal of blood, stamped permanently on Goro’s skin as a sign that he was loved and feared first and foremost in the eyes of the one he’d lost everything to.

The wind chilled them both.

Goro ran fingers through his hair, but it did little to untangle the mess that he’d become. “I have no interest in outing you or your friends.”

“That’s not why,” Akira stepped closer.

Goro regarded him skeptically until the other’s eyes pointed in the direction of the ledge, spinning a tale of the ones who fell when they failed to fly. What a silly thought. Did he not realize that crows could fly? Demons just the same? And liars? Well, they were the best of illusionists.

“My death solves a lot of problems for a lot of people-- conveniently, I might add.” He watched Friday return to normal as the ants braved the whispers the storm had left behind. He tried wiping the words from his hands, but the red wouldn’t wash away.

“You’re not a problem.” Akira promised, as he had a million other things, all of which would be true if Goro could only accept them. But, that was something easy and therefore not for him. 

“That’s so like you.” And, with that, he hoisted himself up, climbing to stand upon the ledge, his arms out only a moment to balance himself. The wind blew, and he caught himself mid-step, balancing once more as he smiled at his executioner down below. “From up here, you can’t smell the stench of the city.”

“Please come down.” Akira wanted to scream, he really did. He wanted to reach out, pull him back, take him in his arms and welcome him home. 

But, he didn’t.

Fear was the emotion Goro knew best.

And now, Akira understood why.

“What I hated most about you, was how much I loved you.”

The smile disappeared, leaving behind nothing but gray sky and empty air, and, once again, Akira was a hero, or so they made him out to be. 

The wind had never felt so promising as that day, and in flight, fear had no place.


End file.
